Dear Mama

My mom really freaked me out last week. I almost lost it. I was at work and got a call late in the afternoon from an unknown number. I let it go to voicemail, but they called back so I answered." This is Go Go Grandma. Is your mom Judy with you? She missed 3 rides."

My mom was missing. She had an appointment at Kaiser. That much I knew. But I thought she said it was in the morning. Or maybe she said the afternoon. Where was she? I started calling her phone. I called ten times. No answer. I texted. Face timed her over and over. Nothing.

I imagined the worst scenarios. Mom had fallen and couldn't get up. She had been robbed or kidnapped. Or at worse, she was dead in her apartment and never caught the Uber. Or maybe she was just at the doctor's. Maybe her phone died and not her. This is what my psychologist years back had taught me to do when anxiety took hold. Don't just think fatalistically.

I called my little sister Annie. She is a hygienist, but she called me back on a break. She said what I had been thinking, my mom never misses an appointment. Ever. Why had my mom missed 3 Uber rides? And why wouldn't she answer her damn phone? 

Annie sent her daughter Sophie to my mom's apartment complex. I finished what I could at work and started driving to Kaiser. Then ping. I'm driving. I ask Siri to read the text. 

"I'm fine. Mad at Go Go Grandma. Walking home from Kaiser. Mom."

I said back, "Text Mom."

"Mom, what the hell? It's miles. Did you bring your walker! You're walking miles? Stay there. I'll come get you Call me."

Ping. 

I asked Siri to read the text.

"Almost home. Mad. Don't want to talk. Yes, walked home. On walker."

"Text Mom, Mom what the fuck. I'm coming over."

When I got to her apartment, my mom had her legs elevated. She had walked the mile and a half home. And she had walked miles at Kaiser trying to find the Uber according to her pedometer.

All in all, it was an anticlimactic ending. I went and got her a chicken bowl. And that's the story about my dear mama.